This timely report includes an analysis of the impact of Apple's recent court victory over Samsung. Apple is now the largest company in history - find out why!

This report is about a company that doesn't own public networks (like AT&T and Verizon); it doesn't own vast computer installations (like Google); it is not a massive software manufacturer (like Microsoft); it is a company that primarily deals with providing end users the access devices that allow connection to all of these other companies' assets. Many would not even call it a telecommunications company at all; but by almost any measure, it is the most successful telecommunications company of all time. This company is Apple! The story of Apple is the story of traffic generation from mobile devices and how to use that storm of traffic to successfully build a business.

It has been six years since our last network traffic forecast (2006) and many things have happened since then. To bring that report up to date, we issued a "Network Traffic Report --2011."

We are now focusing on a particular aspect of that traffic – mobile device originated – and the main company responsible for much of that traffic – Apple.

The increase in overseas traffic, especially from the booming economies of the Far East.

The relative decline (in the period of this forecast) of high-speed access lines and the traffic from them. This includes xDSL lines and cable modems.

Other traffic items (sources) increase in the period, but with much less impact than these five.

-- but the most important event has been

The increase in popularity of using mobile devices and especially using them for data intensive applications.

This report begins with a short history of Apple, and then we will move to an overview of the financial underpinnings of Apple. We will use the two major telecom companies – AT&T and Verizon – as well as the other two companies often involved with the same things that Apple is – Microsoft and Google, for comparisons. It is important to understand Apple's financing to understand the range of strategic options that are open to them and also to understand the depth of their success.

The next area of focus is the traffic on the Internet coming from mobile devices, and the extent of the growth of this traffic and Apple's involvement. The story about Internet traffic is the heart of the Apple success. More than any other company, they have managed to monetize this traffic without requiring astronomical investments and maintenance. We will rely heavily on our recent report mentioned above, "Network Traffic Report – 2011," for forecasts and comparisons.

To help understand the entirety of the telecom marketplace, we introduce a section outlining the recent history of the telecommunications industry and the major players in it (at least as relates to this report.) the intention of this section is to locate Apple on the continuum of telecom companies.
As will be seen, it only fits poorly.

We conclude the main section of this report with a discussion of Apple's strategies as well as those of the other major players.

The Appendixes provide a discussion of IPTV and a forecast for IPTV traffic. Also, extensive material is in the Appendixes, to help the reader with the various traffic concepts in this report.

This report provides:

A History of Apple.

A discussion of Apple finances.

A comparison of Apple finances to the finances of other players.

A discussion of mobile generated network traffic.

Forecasts for Mobile Traffic.

Forecasts for Apple device generated traffic.

Discussion of and forecast for Apple Strategies.

Description of the total telecommunications marketplace with an emphasis on Apple's place in it.

Discussion of and forecast for the strategies of other major players.

Discussion of and forecasts for other (other than mobile) sources of Internet traffic.